Crow, the hilarious talking crow from The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, will be returning in Dreamfall Chapters.

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Crow, the hilarious talking crow fromThe Longest Journey

and Dreamfall , will be returning in Dreamfall Chapters, Red Thread Games shared this morning. Here’s a glimpse of Crow in the new game, although, unfortunately, you won’t get to hear him talk just yet:

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

Dreamfall Chapters

is in development for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Wii U. The game is planned for release in November 2014.

A report from Japanese news organization Nikkei suggests that Nintendo will soon use smart phones as an interactive promotional tool for its games. The report claims that Nintendo will release game trailers and "free mini-games" to entice players on phones to seek out software on Nintendo hardware. Kotaku notes the specific wording of the Japanese article, clarifying that Nikkei does not use the Japanese word for demo, further suggesting an advergaming tilt to the move.

Earlier this month, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said the company would be studying "how smart devices could be used to grow the game-player business" after the company severely adjusted its forecasts for the end of its fiscal year. Nintendo almost halved its original net sales projections and reduced its Wii U shipment expectations to 2.8 million from 9 million.

In October 2012, Iwata said smartphones should not be inherently tied to games, but could be used to help spread Nintendo's messaging and "offer consumers gaming experiences which smart devices cannot realize and to actively try to make smart devices our allies, not our enemies."

Nikkei's report says Nintendo will use its smart phone strategy to provide potential players with information about the story and characters of its games, along with information about release dates and prices. Nintendo is expected to announce the strategy this week.

Joystiq has contacted Nintendo for a comment on the report, but no response was offered at the time of publishing.

Nintendo deny that they’re developing mini-games for smartphones in order to promote their hardware and console titles.

This week, Japanese business publication Nikkei reported that, on January 30th, Nintendo will announce that they plan to release mini-games on smartphones to serve as promotional demos of their console titles.

Communicating with Engadget, however, Nintendo have denied that this is the case, stating: “Nikkei’s article contains information previously stated by Mr Iwata during past press conferences, including statements which relate to Nintendo’s willingness to make use of smart devices to promote our products.”

“However,” the statement continues, “during such past announcements Mr Iwata has also stated that Nintendo’s intention is not to make Nintendo software available on smart devices and as such, we can confirm that there are no plans to offer minigames on smartphone devices.”

Now, one must keep in mind that Nikkei have a near spotless record when it comes to reporting Nintendo’s near-term plans, and Nintendo have a habit of denying these reports, no matter how true they are. At this point, all that’s left to do is wait until January 30th to see what the company has planned to turn its console business around.

I wonder if the next DS will pull some things from the Vita? Maybe it will allow you to connect to 4G service.. And make phone calls/messages? Vita obviously can't do the latter and I highly doubt Nintendo goes that way.. but..It would be interesting.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will take a 50% pay cut from February until June, in light of Nintendo’s poor performance the past year.

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Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will take a 50% pay cut from February until June, in light of Nintendo’s poor performance the past year, reports Japanese publication Nikkei.

Other members of the board, Iwata said to reporters, will be taking pay cuts as well. The two representative directors of Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda, will take a 30% pay cut, while other board members will take a 20% pay cut.

After the five-month period, decisions regarding these pay cuts will be taken depending on the state of Nintendo’s business at the time. Tomorrow, January 30th, Nintendo will discuss its strategy for its games business going forward.

So what looks to be the beginning of an actual ID-based network and the beginnings of bridging the two Virtual Consoles? I like. One step at a time, I guess, but I still like.

__________________
"When you see a John Woo film, it's comforting to know how shallow the world really is. The full force of the manly coolness factor with a peice of nose hair sticking out from the tiny crack between manly and cool, exposes the thinness of the male hormone factor. It takes an idiot to do cool things. That's why it's cool."

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I was a North American Fall Webworm in my past life. Those were the good old days.

“Our top priority task this year is to offer software titles that are made possible because of the GamePad,” says Nintendo president Satoru Iwata

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The Wii U is in a rough spot. The system has sold just 5 million units to date, and it has been on the market for over a year now. Sales have dried up, third-party support has dried up, and people think of the Wii U GamePad as an accessory for the Wii. Needless to say, turning the situation around will be difficult for Nintendo.

That having been said, Nintendo intend to try, and they’ll begin by trying to turn the Wii U GamePad into a more useful device. Part of this plan involves releasing Nintendo DS games on the Wii U Virtual Console service, but there are plans beyond that, too.

“Our top priority task this year is to offer software titles that are made possible because of the GamePad,” Iwata said to investors and analysts during a financial results meeting yesterday.

“We have managed to offer several of such software titles for occasions when many people gather in one place to play, but we have not been able to offer a decisive software title that enriches the user’s gameplay experience when playing alone with the GamePad. This will be one of the top priorities of Mr. Miyamoto’s software development department this year.”

In addition, Nintendo plan to expand the GamePad’s usefulness of its NFC (Near-Field Communication) abilities. Thus far, the only game to really have made use of them is Pokémon Rumble U, but Nintendo say they’ll have more to show at E3 this year.

Finally, further improvements will be made to the GamePad on a software level that makes it easier and quicker to start games up on the Wii U.

I hope a price drop happens soon, I'm saving for a 3DS which I'll probably get within two weeks and next will hopefully be a Wii U. But I cant help but be skeptical to fork over 300 bucks. Even with the great first party titles and wonderful Virtual Console...(really excited A Link to the Past is now available)

that will mostlikely be done by retailers as they just told the press which in one of the articles game informer put up, there's no plan for a price drop as I expected. it might help but they don't want to do it. so that's that for now.

This was also put up to day but I know this most get's looked over by certain parts the gamer press(except the ones that care) and some certain gamers when talked about.Nintendo To Expand Into Health And Quality Of Life Business. January 29, 2014 . 9:28pmNintendo have plans to expand their business into a new market—health and improving quality of life.

(They also hinted that Tecmo Koei will publishHyrule Warriors in Japan themselves, but none of you seemed to appreciate this hard-hitting fact.)

Beyond these plans, though, Nintendo have other plans as well. Plans to expand their business into a new market—health and improving quality of life. This business will be independent of Nintendo’s videogame platform business, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said at a financial results meeting.

Iwata presented the above slide to investors and analysts during his presentation. In order to combat consumer apathy, it is necessary to extend the definition of videogames, and Iwata feels that Nintendo managed to achieve this goal with the Nintendo DS and Wii. The next step, Iwata said, is to “extend the definition of entertainment” and in this regard, Nintendo will focus on quality of life.

“This time, we decided to redefine our notion of entertainment as something that improves people’s quality of life in enjoyable ways, and take a step forward in expanding our business areas,” Iwata shared. “Being an entertainment company, making ‘enjoyable improvements’ is something that Nintendo excels at, and this definition provides us with a clear distinction from simply ‘improving QOL.’”

Iwata went on to explain that Nintendo hope to improve people’s quality of life over the next ten years using an approach that involves “non-wearable devices”.

“It has been a long time since people started to say that the console era has now shifted to a new mobile era, with wearable technology in the spotlight at CES this month,” Iwata stated. He went on to state that Nintendo have no interest in competing with other companies already involved in this market, and so, their approach will be to develop non-wearable technology that promotes health and carve out a new market for themselves.

When one speaks of “health” in relation to videogames, the first thing that comes to mind is Wii Fit. However, Iwata says, “we are considering themes that we have not incorporated to games for our existing platforms.” He added that, aside from Wii Fit, Nintendo have acquired a great deal of experience working on educational games such as Brain Age, Art Academy, Cooking Navigator and so on, and as a result have amassed knowledge that they can hopefully apply toward encouraging people to improve their quality of life while keeping them entertained.

The above slide illustrates Nintendo’s basic strategy in this regard. The intent is to create a platform that integrates itself into people’s daily lives, keeps them engaged and entertained, and helps redefine health consciousness at the same time.

More details about this new business segment will be shared at a later point in 2014, and Nintendo hope to launch this initiative starting 2015.

I hope a price drop happens soon, I'm saving for a 3DS which I'll probably get within two weeks and next will hopefully be a Wii U. But I cant help but be skeptical to fork over 300 bucks. Even with the great first party titles and wonderful Virtual Console...(really excited A Link to the Past is now available)

It just had a price drop, so it's probably not going to have another for awhile

__________________
"When you see a John Woo film, it's comforting to know how shallow the world really is. The full force of the manly coolness factor with a peice of nose hair sticking out from the tiny crack between manly and cool, exposes the thinness of the male hormone factor. It takes an idiot to do cool things. That's why it's cool."

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I was a North American Fall Webworm in my past life. Those were the good old days.